Patience is a virtue

A popular liquid hand-wash brand promises to kill germs within 10 seconds. 10 seconds? A speech bubble popped up-”Why? Am I going to turn into an alien thereafter?” I shared this thought with my friend but he argued that given our hectic lives, time wasted in these trivial activities such as washing hands, could be spent better. But are we really that conscious about spending our time wisely?

In our country everybody wants everything done, instantly. For example, take the clichéd case of a government office. We want our job to be finished instantly, so we bribe the official. But we never realize that there are thousands of people just like us who want the same job done, and have bribed the same official. So due to our lack of patience we end up corrupting the entire system and still get the same slow result. These days, at government offices, people rarely ask what forms to fill up, or what are the eligibility criterias, rather they ask “How much should we pay to get this job done?” We have to understand that all government processes take time; primarily due to our country’s overwhelming population and of course, depending on the process everything has certain formalities and a time frame. For instance, if we require a passport, we have to mandatorily fill in our details and wait patiently for the policemen to complete the verification. We really must be smart enough to apply for the passport well in advance and not apply just before a few days from when it’s required. Realize this, and corruption in our country will be a thing our children might study as a part of history.

Hastiness is another alarming trend growing throughout our country. This is a spin-off from the above mentioned ‘instant results’ culture. On this note, I would like to share my recent experience on road. The signal was red. It was about to turn green, with the timer indicating that there were 5 more seconds left. Suddenly, a guy in a two-wheeler with his son as pillion accelerated and raced off! I hadn’t even blinked, when I saw the others racing off as well. A mix of emotions surfaced. “What if a vehicle from the other side, hit them?” ran as an infinite loop within me. I went home and reflected upon the incident again. Another speech bubble popped up-“What on earth was he going to do, in those five seconds?” I realized how hasty, people (even the so called grown-ups) were. In spite-of endless warnings that ignoring traffic rules could lead to death, we are begging fate, to add us to the list of tomorrow’s obituaries. We not just cause danger to our lives, but to those who are proper as well. We never think of the guy from the other side that got hit because he followed the rules. Why should a guy who has obeyed all the rules get hurt for no fault of his? Is it because we didn’t have the patience to wait for 5 seconds? Just imagine how harsh it would be on him.

In the end all of this comes to a simple, but a very effective quality- Patience. Ask yourselves, “Are we really such time conscious workers? Do we really have so much to do, that we don’t have even mere seconds of spare time?” After all, we’re from a society, which wants working hours in companies to be reduced to six hours, based on a survey which says such revised timings improve the quality of work. While in contrast, there are people in countries like Japan, who work 60 hours a week. This doesn’t mean we’ve to do everything patiently; we just need to prioritize better. Yes, some things like paying income taxes, periodic vaccinations, paying your insurance premiums and so on, need to be done instantly. Stop saying “I don’t have time!” when in reality, our lack of proper time management skills is the problem. So the next time you make a decision, always keep in mind that patience is a virtue. Remember, you needn’t always have to be the one, to do it first. Sometimes, it is enough if you be the one, to do it right.

Good article on emphasizing patience as virtue and bring into lime light the aspect of “doing it right” ! I wish the younger generation and their well wishers (parents, relatives, friends, teacher) also do understand the essence of “doing it right”. Perhaps had these virtues of doing things right, in a sound way was cemented into the young minds in schools and colleges, things could have been extra-ordinary different today. Nevertheless, it is never too late to do course correction. Let the virtue of “doing it right” is sown right early in one’s life (in schools and colleges) such that “knowledge” germinates in the “right” way !

Your article/opinion is perfect but the quoted passport example doesn’t seem to fit. When we apply for a passport, even when we are ready to wait with patience, the concerned authority, “The Police” calls saying “Tomorrow be at Police station with Rs. XXX”. If you ask why, he says “Just bring…”. So, I don’t think patience was an issue there!

Hey thanks a lot for giving it a read buddy! keep your comments flowing. Regarding the passport example, I do agree that although your projection is also true,there are a lots of instances where people just apply for a passport a day or two before and bribe the respective people to get it done.(in some cases even without the police verification). Hence the cited example.

This relates to the book I am reading now “The one thing” , it says that to get more done we need to subtract not add more activities. We need to focus our attention, a good way is using the focusing question mention in the book, “What’s one thing I can do, that by doing else, everything else will be easy”.

Hi there Bhuboy! Thank you so much for giving it a read! I’m really flattered to know that you have related it to the book “The one thing”, and btw I just inked out what I felt buddy, advice wasn’t really on my mind. Thanks for the compliment though.. and most importantly stay tuned!!!